Elise jerked her face toward his at that suggestion. She was shocked at how much jealousy rose up in her at the thought that Stenfax would be alone with a woman he once intended to marry.
That the same woman was now married and seemingly in love with her husband made no difference. Elise still wanted to rush forward and hurtle herself between Lucien and Celia.
Of course, she did no such foolish thing. She had some tiny bit of pride left, after all.
“Certainly,” he said as the others gathered themselves to go up to their chambers. “I’d love a moment to catch up.”
Elise set her jaw. There was no argument she could make against this plan that wouldn’t make her look like a foolish ninny. So she forced herself to say, “I look forward to a bed, I admit.”
Stenfax broke his gaze away from Celia and his eyes flashed with brief want as he looked at Elise. She tensed at the sight of it. They had barely touched for so long, her body ached for missing him. And judging by his look, it seemed he had his needs, too.
That gave her some small sense of triumph, and she clung to that as she followed the rest of the group from the room and left Stenfax alone with the woman he’d once intended to marry not so very long ago.
“So,” Celia said as she settled into a chair by the fire and took the cup of tea Stenfax had prepared for her. “You have had averybusy summer since I left London two months ago.”
Stenfax smiled despite himself and sat down across from her. “It has been quite a thing, yes.”
“You are the king of the understatement,” she said with a laugh.
He shrugged. “If there is more to say, I simply lack the eloquence to say it.”
Celia set her cup aside and leaned forward, more serious now. “She’s lovely,” she offered. “Prettier close up than the few times I saw her at a distance.”
Stenfax swallowed hard. “She is the most beautiful woman ever to grace this earth.”
Celia smiled. “Rosalinde likes her, which of course is a great recommendation.”
“Rosalinde is a good judge of character,” he said, arching a brow. “Are you going to dance around whatever it is you truly want to say?”
She laughed. “Funny how we got to know each other better onlyafterwe decided not to marry.”
Stenfax smiled once more. That was as true a statement as had ever been made. When he’d been engaged to Celia, he had felt absolutely nothing toward her. He’d welcomed that numb emptiness at the time and told himself he could live with it. That he would do his duty as so many men had done before and live very happily without anything more passionate or real in his future.
Now he was glad he hadn’t sacrificed them both to the altar of that foolish mistake. If he had insisted they wed rather than release her, protect her, when she had admitted she wanted more, Celia never would have found her future with Dane. Stenfax knew very little about him, but it was evident Celia loved him and he her.
And more to the point, Stenfax wouldn’t have had a chance to ever be with Elise again. The very idea of that cut him to his bone.
“It’s complicated, though, between you.”
Stenfax lifted his gaze to her. “And you callmeking of the understatement. You know about our past. After all that has gone on, you even know the bits I only just learned myself.”
“You think John told me everything?” Celia asked.
He tilted his head. “The way he looks at you? Yes, I think he told you everything. I think he couldn’t help himself, for you two are so connected.”
Celia leaned back in her chair. “Well, of course he did. I suppose you must be angry with her.”
Stenfax caught his breath. No one had put it in terms of anger before that moment—even he hadn’t allowed himself to do so.
“Angry?” he said, his voice shaking a little. “She sacrificed herself for me and my family. She ensured that Felicity wasn’t sent to the gallows. Am Iallowedanger?”
“Of course you are,” Celia said softly. “If anger is what you feel, then pretending it away does no good. You are certainly entitled to it, I think. She sacrificed herself, but I know you. You are not a man who likes someone else to arrange his destiny.”
He clenched his jaw. And there it was. The truth he had been trying not to face, part of the truth that was keeping him from truly giving himself to Elise.
“I…amangry,” he said, the words gaining more power when he said them out loud. “I loved her and I was not even given a chance to have a say in what she did. She didn’t trust me enough to give me the opportunity to do what needed to be done formyfamily.”
Celia’s face was very still, and she nodded. “I can imagine that is frustrating.”
